Financial literacy.
Two words that carry a lot of meaning.
Simply put, it’s a term that translates into understanding how to manage money – which is the keystone to building a brighter financial future.
Unfortunately, though, nearly half of Canadians surveyed in a recent Equifax study on credit awareness indicate that they’ve never received any financial education.
That’s why financial organizations encourage Canadians to plan on improving their financial futures.
“Thirty-seven per cent of the Canadians have zero savings rate or negative, so they are taking out more debt to survive day to day,” said Nancy Phillips, a financial life skills advocate.
Using statistics which track household financial resiliency in Canada, Phillips highlighted the increasing need for financial literacy in today’s world.
“It’s extremely important, now more than ever, because the speed at which transactions are done are so much faster,” said Phillips, “and our brain and our body don’t recognize those financial transactions the way we did when we used cash.”
In November, a charity breakfast fundraiser was held for financial literacy.
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“It’s not an easy topic,” said Jason Peters of Valley First Credit Union, adding households face a variety of pressing moments.
“It’s easy to go through the day going, ‘Yeah, one of these I’ll figure it out, one of these days I’ll learn, one of these days.’
“But if we let that go, it can have the same thing as not taking care of ourselves physically and not taking care of our relationship with money.”
Peters says learning about financial literacy can be daunting for newcomers to Canada. But he adds that by sharing basic skills for a brighter financial future, “we can strengthen our local community and our country.”
Learning about financial literacy takes time, but, in the end, it’s well worth the personal investment.
“One of the biggest benefits of financial literacy and financial resiliency is that it can reduce your stress,” said Jennifer Robins of Launch Okanagan, “and people are very stressed about money right now.”
And that’s why Valley First supports Launch Okanagan in sharing and learning about financial life skills.
“If someone is interested in improving their financial literacy, that’s actually what we do at Launch Okanagan,” said Robins.
“That’s our mission and we do that by offering in-person and Zoom programs with the idea of helping people build brighter financial futures for themselves and their families.”
To find out more about their free, eight-week dollar and sense program, which covers saving, credit use, banking, spending and budgeting, visit Launch Okanagan.
The next court starts in January.